


nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know

by Lojuba



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lojuba/pseuds/Lojuba
Summary: ‘You really think I’d betray the village?’‘I think you’re itching for that one fight that’ll push you over the edge and I am not going to be the one to give it to you,’ Naruto answered slowly, his voice clear and unwavering, as he stepped away and out of the reach of Sasuke’s hands.Sasuke’s eyes narrowed, almost accusingly, maybe he didn’t know it, yet, but they had an expiration date.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know

**Author's Note:**

> the story is told in two parts. I aged them up to make it plausible. I wrote this forever ago, and found it again recently, hope you enjoy.

  
Naruto would have liked to believe that this made him special, but he knew better by now than to assume anything with Sasuke.  
  
There were times where he hated that he’d given so much of himself away. They fought, killed and risked their lives over and over again, before they even considered intimacy. It was the way things worked in their world. At fourteen they had been too young to understand what it meant, and now at fifteen he didn’t care anymore.  
  
In a perfect life that would have been it. He would have laughed, if he didn’t know that it would rip his split lip open again.  
  
Sasuke was branded with the cursed seal and one bad fight away from deserting, while he carried a demon in his gut. Perfect lives were for other people.  
  
Shaking his head slowly at his own depressing thoughts he made eye contact with his reflection again, the ice pack on the faucet would start to leak again, if he didn’t put it back in the freezer, soon.  
  
He ignored his bruised chin and his split lip in favor of his neck. The marks that Sasuke had left there in another kind of passion made him feel much worse than the ones that were currently adorning his face.  
  
  
 _Drip_.  
  


This wasn’t supposed to be the hard part.  
  
  
 _Drip_.  
  
  
No one even knew that they were having sex.  
  
  
 _Drip_.  
  
  
He was fifteen, he could make his own choices.  
  
  
 _Drip_.  
  
  
He almost flinched as his eyes caught side of his bruised chin again. It looked bad.  
  
  
 _Drip_.  
  
  
He grabbed the ice pack on his way out.  
  
  
[X]  
  
  
Kakashi hadn’t done much more than order the teens to train their taijutsu, which Sasuke had taken to mean, that reinforcing his punches and kicks with chakra was alright. His fist sailed towards him once more, the threatening gleam of chakra was nothing more than a silent promise of pain, and Naruto was growing tired of it. Sakura sat on the side lines and admired the man, she thought she loved.  
Between being disregarded as a pupil, being used as a punching bag by his supposed best friend, and not taken seriously by their other team mate, Naruto was ready to leave.  
  
The only saving grace was knowing that Jiraiya would visit soon, and the Sannin had been hinting at traveling together for a while now.  
  
‘Dobe?’ Sasuke growled as he doubled his efforts and forced Naruto to take him seriously. They traded and evaded blows for a while. Sasuke doing most of the trading and Naruto most of the evading, before Kakashi called it off.  
  
‘Are you alright Naruto?’ he asked, and he actually looked like he might care, but it didn’t feel like a question that he could answer honestly.  
  
‘I’m fine.’ A few tense moments passed. They were obviously expecting him to built-up on that and he had to be careful on how to do that. If he said that he was feeling physically drained or tired he’d be in a hospital, faster than he could count to three. That was what happened when you managed to get sick with the Kyuubi inside of you.  
  
Kakashi stared him down, raising an eyebrow under his mask. ‘Tsunade talked to you last week, didn’t she?’  
  
The blonde nodded, as Sasuke’s eyes narrowed on him.  
  
‘She just told me that I could, if I wanted to. Not that I had to,’ he summed up, and he could see that Sakura looked a bit annoyed with the lack of substantial information, like she had a right to it.  
  
‘What does that even mean?’ She asked rolling her eyes, and Naruto could swear that she was about to lose her patience with him.  
  
‘Not important,’ Kakashi, interrupted, clapping Naruto on the shoulder. ‘Go home, you have some decisions to make. Take tomorrow off, too, if you need it.’

[X]

He hadn’t even stepped foot into his own apartment before he felt the dark eyes on him again.  
  


Hypnotic in more than one sense of the word.  
  
‘What was that all about?’ Sasuke asked, leaning casually against his kitchen counter, careful not to brush up against the dirty dishes that had accumulated there over time.  
  
‘Nothing important.’ There were times when he couldn’t sound like his usual self, all happy, bright, and loud. The deep grovel in his voice came through, and everything about him bled into something more serious.  
  
Within a blink the Uchiha stood eye to eye with him, one hand pressed against the blondes abused jaw, holding him gently in place. ‘Why are you hiding what this is about?’  
  


‘You know.’ Naruto knew that he had no business accusing Sasuke, when he hadn’t done it, yet. When he hadn’t left them behind, left _him_ behind. But he wasn’t about to share, either. Not when everything felt like a done deal already.  
  
‘I’m not leaving.’ There was something about the ease with which he made Naruto this promise, that rubbed him the wrong way. As if it showed him that he was just another idiot to Sasuke. A face in a sea of faces, not particular in a way that meant something. If he truly cared about Naruto, he would have the decency to be honest.  
  
‘I think you will,’ Naruto nodded, not bothering with false pretenses, anymore.  
  
There was a shocked silence between the two, in which Sasuke fastened his grip on him. The pressure hurt his jaw, but Naruto wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of flinching.  
  
‘I won’t,’ he repeated, as if it wasn’t even tempting him.  
  
If Naruto had learned one thing in his miserable life, it was that he hated being kept in the dark. Not having been trusted with the truth about what he was, not having been considered a confidante or a friend by Sakura, not having been acknowledged by Kakashi had gotten to him.  
  
‘Why not?’  
  
Sasuke’s face did a weird thing, after he’d asked that, something between a frown and a scoff. ‘You really think I’d betray the village?’  
  
‘I think you’re itching for that one fight that’ll push you over the edge and I am not going to be the one to give it to you,’ Naruto answered slowly, his voice clear and unwavering, as he stepped away and out of the reach of Sasuke’s hands.  
  
Sasuke’s eyes narrowed, almost accusingly, maybe he didn’t know it, yet, but he would leave them all in the dust. Naruto could feel it in his bones. They had an expiration date.  
  
‘You think—’  
  
‘I know,’ Naruto interrupted, deceptively calm, as if he was the one on the precipice, that just needed that one push that would send him over the edge.  
  
The Uchiha made a sound of disagreement, ‘You don’t know anything,’ he remarked coldly.  
  
‘Then why are you here?’  
  
‘It doesn’t matter anymore,’ Sasuke waved away.  
  
Naruto snorted, but it sounded all wrong, mocking and dangerous. ‘You should leave, then,’ Naruto’s eyes switched to the mountain of dishes that were piled up next to the faucet.  
  
‘What is wrong with you Dobe?’ Sasuke’s aggression reminded him of a cornered animal.  
  
‘Nothing.’ A lot, but he wasn’t going to think about that too much, better focus on the shit he could actually fix, like the mountain of dishes and the little laundry pile that was by the window.  
  
‘Cutting me off, before I get the chance to do it to you, you’re such a child.’ It wasn’t that Sasuke was wrong, it just wasn’t the entire truth.  
  
‘I’m not going to fight with you until I know that I can trust you not to lose it. That’s not childish, it’s common sense, Teme,’ Naruto realized that nothing short of shoving Sasuke out of his apartment was going to do the trick. Instead of wasting any more time on this, he sidestepped him and just walked towards the pile of discarded clothes and started sorting it out.  
  
In the time it took for him to pick the few white and black things he had out of the sea of orange, Sasuke stepped close to the window sill.  
  
‘You could always come with me,’ he said, slowly and so very quiet that Naruto almost didn’t pick up on it.  
  
The half shadowed face of Sasuke was intimidatingly beautiful and yet it didn’t even compare to the fire burning in his eyes.  
  
‘They don’t teach you anything either, even though people like my brother are looking for you,’ the way he said it, made it sound like a crime.  
  
‘You know why I can’t leave,’ Naruto shook his head.  
  
‘But you want to,’ the dark haired ninja countered, eyes boring into his very soul.  
  
He sorted through the dark overalls, he’d been going through them faster, the more he trained the more scuffed up they got.  
  
‘I won’t ever be able to just up and leave, but it looks like they’ll let me travel with Jiraiya, if all goes well,’ he finally admitted, feeling once again as if he was giving too much away.  
  


‘You should be able to,’ Sasuke answered and he always did this. Put his miserable life into perspective, as if that would do either of them any good.  
  
Having finished sorting through his clothes he went to load the first machine, before he turned tired eyes back to his dishes.  
  
‘I know,’ is what he finally said, because he knew, that he shouldn’t be treated the way he was.  
  
‘And you’re just going to let them do it?’ There was that condescending tone that Naruto had learned to hate such a long time ago. He suddenly wished Sasuke was angry instead.  
  
‘Think about this for a moment,” Naruto said, tiredly, as he started with his cutlery and the chop sticks. “If I left, where would I go? People who are as strong as your brother have teamed up in an organization to fucking kill me and they are hunting me down, even when I am with one of the Sannin,” he stopped talking as he focused on a particularly dried up bit of spring onion that stuck to his kitchen scissors.  
  
‘Also, Konoha would be left without a Jinchuuriki. That puts them at a severe disadvantage when it comes to negotiating peace treaties with other countries.’ He paused as he watched his team mate carefully.  
Sasuke glared him down, but there was understanding there as well and that broke Naruto’s heart much more than anything else could have ever done. He knew this situation was helpless, but there was something about having a pipe dream that just gave him enough power to keep going, to keep trying.  
  
Shaking himself free from the incredible force that were Sasuke’s eyes, even without the Sharingan he had a way of commending attention, he dumped the remaining plates and bowls into his sink and let them soak for a few moments, before he managed to regain his composure.  
  
‘It’s not that bad,’ he finally said, because it wasn’t it. ‘I have the opportunity to travel with Jiraiya. Tsunade likes me well enough, and as long as I keep moving forward—’ He let the sentence bleed into nothing before he collected himself and culled his doubts. ‘I just have to believe that I can have more in life if I keep trying.’  
  
Sasuke’s hand crept up, as the other stood on the other side of the counter, facing him. Naruto felt the warmth of it burn through his sleeves.  
He didn’t want to look up at him, because he knew, Sasuke would think him foolish for it, but he forced himself to do it nonetheless. He didn’t want to have any regrets, later, when everything was said and done, and Sasuke had run off to Orochimaru, he didn’t want to fool himself into thinking that any of this had meant anything— And he regretted it immediately, because Sasuke looked like he understood him all to well. He looked like he was yearning for the kind of believe Naruto was able to hold onto. _That it would have to get better._  
  
‘I need to get stronger,’ it was probably the only truth Sasuke had ever shared openly about himself.  
  
‘So, what are you waiting for?’ Naruto asked, smiling and he knew it must look like a horrible excuse for a smile, because Sasuke seemed to flinch away from him, then.  
  
‘I’m not fighting you for it,’ Naruto said, and he couldn’t help but feel tired again. ‘You have to make that decision for yourself.’  
  
Sasuke shook his head. ‘I know.’  
  
‘You could try and tell Tsunade, see if she’d let you go as a mission,’ Naruto said as he loaded the sponge up on dish soap again. The drying rack was already overflowing with clean dishes.  
  
Sasuke sneered, when he answered. ‘She wouldn’t let me go.’  
  
Naruto didn’t know how to tell him that that was exactly the reason why he couldn’t’ trust Sasuke anymore. He couldn’t trust him enough to fight him and he sure as hell wouldn’t let him anywhere near his bed right now either, because he didn’t care enough to try, anymore, because he’d thrown them all away already.

He must have broadcasted his resignation some way or the other because Sasuke was poking him in the forehead again. Like he usually did when Naruto was overthinking stuff or being generally distracted.  
  
Naruto swatted it away but Sasuke just laughed his slightly psychotic laugh, that was just as fake as Naruto’s grin earlier.  
  
‘How much time do you have left to decide?’ He asked as he stacked up the last bowl onto the worryingly high tower of drying dishes.  
  
‘Until tomorrow night,’ Sasuke said, and Naruto knew that he was being truthful.  
  
‘Me too,’ Naruto nodded, tiredly.

‘Do you know if you’ll leave with Jiraiya?’  
  
Naruto snorted, as he started to dry the dishes and sort them into his cabinets.  
  
‘Your bruises look a lot worse today, Kakashi talked to me about it.’ That was the first time Sasuke acknowledged that he’d hurt Naruto.  
  
‘Which ones?’ Naruto asked absentmindedly as he tried to ignore the painful tug on his heartstrings when he heard Sasuke settle down on his sofa and starting to unroll one of his scrolls on sealing.  
  
‘Obviously the ones on your face, he wouldn’t have seen the others, you’re careful about that,’ Sasuke said, waving away his concerns. And Naruto blushed. He was careful about no one knowing. He’d always assumed Sasuke would want him to be, but Sasuke had never once indicated that it was something he wanted and now he sounded bitter about it.  
  
‘It’s too late now, I can’t be the village pariah and the one that fucked a traitor.’  
  
Sasuke’s grin was almost infectious. ‘Don’t give yourself too much credit, you weren’t the only one who did the fucking.’  
  
‘Same difference.’  
  
Naruto stopped to look around the apartment desperately looking for something else to do, feeling pathetic. He had this sense of foreboding that always came when Sasuke started to relax around him. When the playfulness and easy acceptance begun to overshadow much more important things about them.  
  
He wasn’t going to give into it, not this time. The problem was that his place was clean for the most part, he’d had ants once when he was eight and he’d sworn to himself that he’d never let it get that bad again. It was just cluttered sometimes and if he didn’t want to start deep cleaning the bathroom out of desperation, he’d have to face his … Sasuke.  
  
The other teen had been watching him for some time, which didn’t explain his relaxed manner and the way he let himself fall back against the couch at all. He should be at least as nervous as Naruto, if not more.

‘Would them knowing change anything?’ He asked, instead, because it had to be asked.  
  
Everything he did felt so final and open, maybe because he knew he’d hate himself for not having asked it later on. For not having done what he could have, to stop him. For not betraying his trust and telling on him.  
  
That last one was probably the only one he’d ever forgive himself for, because right now there was still a chance as miniscule as it was, there was still that glimmer of hope, that came with the overwhelming feeling of angst and dejection, and the fear of being left behind, but if he went and told someone about Sasuke’s plans, he’d lose Sasuke in more ways than one.  
  
And that was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? He couldn’t afford to be at fault for losing the one thing he’d never thought he’d have.  
  
Someone showing interest in him that went beyond the superficial façade, he’d built so badly that you’d have to be a special kind of ignorant to take it for what it was, was still a novel experience for him. Someone wanting him in a way that felt almost like it went beyond lust, but even lust was better than apathy.

Sasuke’s voice brought him back from his musings, it wasn’t fair that it sounded so rich, when the teen wasn’t that much older than him.  
  
‘It wouldn’t change anything,’ Sasuke said, brushing it off, but his eyes grew more intent, and Naruto felt the holes they were burning into the back of his neck. Instead of turning around he nodded absentmindedly, as he picked up one of the elemental Jutsu scrolls, Jiraiya had left for him and looked through the forms.  
  
He wasn’t kidding himself into believing he was a reason to stay and he wasn’t going to let Sasuke turn him into a reason to leave, by escalating things the way he wanted him to.  
  
Naruto knew he’d won, when he heard Sasuke’s condescending sounding, ‘Tch.’  
  
  
[X]  
  
  
There was something awful about not having the conviction to do what you needed to do to protect yourself. Naruto stared at the face in the mirror and wondered why he was the way he was.  
  
The bruises on his face had healed as fast as they always did, unnaturally so, but the new ones around his necks looked shamefully purple and fresh. He didn’t want to think about how easy it had been for Sasuke to get him to give in. Didn’t want to think about how much fun it was, and how much he would miss it, when he couldn’t have him like that anymore. Because Sasuke losing control in a way that didn’t involve fury or violence was a sight to behold.  
  
He was pathetic. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to show up to team-praxis today to get punched in the face, again.  
  
A part of him was relieved that he wouldn’t have to see him today, because he knew that Sasuke was going to leave. The small glimmer of hope he’d felt last night, was gone. Sasuke had been too clingy for it to have been anything other than goodbye.  
He’d held onto him harder, had moaned louder, had bitten harsher, had felt freer. It was as much of a goodbye as he was going to get, and he’d made it count. But now, he felt empty, as if he was running through the motions.  
So, he stayed home, looked at scrolls without really reading anything, watched the pile of dirty dishes grow once more, and stopped for the day.  
  
Because, he’d own this silent heartbreak, that wasn’t all that important to anyone other than him. Sasuke had to have known, he’d been the only one who Naruto had even let close enough to touch him in any way, for years now. Sure, the sex had been more of a recent development, but there had been no excuse for the physicality of their relationship up to that point.  
  
It wasn’t long before Sakura came knocking at his door. He heard her but he wasn’t sure he could face Sasuke, not after he’d told him his decision. But hearing his teammate's sobs, he knew that he couldn’t continue to wallow in self-pity.  
  
It didn’t make listening to the rushed explanation of a confession, nor the demand of a promise any easier.  
  
‘I’m not promising you that,’ Naruto told her coldly, before he could even think twice about it. Sakura looked caught somewhere between shame and shock, and a vindictive part of him felt good when he saw that. He knew he sounded harsh, when he told her what to do, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘Go get Kakashi, I’ll try to catch up to him!’ And with that he jumped off the ledge of his apartment building and started running for the gate.  
  
He made it halfway to the cliff before he realized that if he’d been able to go this far without being tailed, he was probably able to go with Sasuke after all, but a part of him knew that it wasn’t for him.  
  
Instead he focused, he couldn’t afford to take his time, let Sasuke put more distance between them because Kakashi would be able to pick up on it, but he also wasn’t keen on fighting.  
  
Shortly before he saw the dark silhouette of his … former teammate, he stopped. What if Sakura hadn’t run to get Kakashi after all? Could he trust her to go get help? He didn’t know, but he knew that he wasn’t going to attack Sasuke.  
  
The teen turned around and he looked just the right amount of shocked to see him there, to qualm Naruto’s insecurities. He had meant something to him, after all.  
  
‘Did you come to stop me?’ He asked, and there was a roughness in his voice, that had nothing to do with anger. He sounded scared.  
  
Naruto shook his head, slightly, just the barest hint of a no, but Sasuke saw it either way. He closed the distance before Naruto could and even though the boy knew that this was a bad idea, he let him come close.  
  
Let his face be cupped let the Sharingan blaze at him, and he waited for the hurt or the pain or the fleeting sensation of sleep but nothing happened.  
  
‘What are you doing?’ Naruto asked, and Sasuke shook his head determinedly. ‘I want to be able to remember you the way you are now.’ And there was something heartbreaking about this, too.  
  
‘If you’re going to leave you should knock me out with a genjutsu, that would be easiest to explain.’  
  
Sasuke nodded, before he watched the path behind him. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone coming,’ he remarked carefully, and Naruto would let Sakura know how much of an asshole she was for leaving him to do this by himself.  
  
‘You could just go back, tell them you didn’t find me,’ there was a pleading note in his voice that made him want to give in.  
  
‘I could,’ he finally said, and he knew that he would, but not yet.  
  
‘Not yet?’ Sasuke asked, and yeah, okay, they were being stupid about this. Anyone could see them out here. Could see the way Sasuke was basically clinging to him, leaning in for one last kiss, one of goodbye and one of promise, even if it was false.  
  
‘Come with me,’ Sasuke demanded, and Naruto wanted to say yes so badly, but he shook his head, and watched his friend intently.  
  
‘Come back?’ There was something inherently horrible about what he was asking, because he’d commit himself to waiting for whenever that would be the case, but thankfully Sasuke knew that, too, because he shook his head absolving him once more from his self-imposed torment of loving someone who left him behind.  
  
Sasuke shook his head once more, as if reminding himself of what needed to be done, stepped back and jumped away, and Naruto was left behind, with kiss bruised lips, holding back tears and hurt.

  
  
[X]

  
  
The aftermath of everything was kept as quiet as possible, for Sasuke’s sake. The fact that Naruto had lied and told them that he hadn’t been able to catch up with him, had made Sakura’s inaction even more condemnable, because the implication was clear that if she’d followed procedure and gotten their teacher, like Naruto had asked her to, they wouldn’t have lost their team mate.  
  
Tsunade had been furious and the girl had been in tears and Naruto felt even worse when she’d been forced to retell the evening in as much detail as she could, which meant talking about the promise she’d tried to hold him to.  
  
It wasn’t like she got suspended or punished in any way. She was a young teen that had made a bad judgement call because she was in love. But she’d lost a lot of respect that day, and she’d have to work hard to regain it. Something in the way Sakura held herself next to him told him that she, too, knew that she’d messed this up, and somehow that made it better.  
  
He would have reached out and squeezed her shoulder or put a hand on her back in comfort, but he wasn’t sure that it would be welcomed. It wasn’t her fault that she’d never gotten to know Sasuke well enough to know that he didn’t care for her in the same way.

There had been pity and talks about Jiraiya coming to pick him up earlier, because they couldn’t go on missions the way they were now.  
  
Naruto on the other hand felt a bit numb. In a way he’d never felt before, and the problem was that he didn’t know how to fix it.  
  
Walking down the market he bought a few healthy-ish food options, a habit he’d started picking up when Sasuke began to drop by to spend time with him and sneered at everything in his pantry.   
He almost wanted to throw it all away in favor of instant ramen, but he knew better than to ignore the good that had come from their … friendship. Kami knows, there had been enough bad in it for a lifetime or two.  
  
Shikamaru started to follow him back to his apartment without much preamble. The boy knew more than he let on. The silence was weirdly comforting, even if Shikamaru just looked around his apartment curiously, as if he expected something differently, before he sat down on his couch and lied back.  
  
It irked him a bit that he picked the exact same spot Sasuke had chosen the other day, but he swallowed down what he wanted to say, in favor of starting to put his food away.  
  
‘You’ve changed a lot,’ was what Shikamaru finally said, and he actually seemed surprised by it.  
  
‘We all did,’ Naruto answered, as he let himself fall back against his couch, before he stared at the wall with the scrolls. He should probably try to revise before his godfather showed up.  
  
Shikamaru shook his head. ‘No, they grew up, that was inevitable, and not all of them did that. You _changed_. That’s different and I’m not sure I get why.’  
  
Naruto nodded, before he leaned forward, feeling way too out of it to be having this conversation.   
  
‘Does it matter?’ was what he ended up saying and even though he felt slightly guilty, being able to have someone around that he could chose to push away was a welcome change.  
  
Shikamaru must have known this because he glared at him in that way that implied that he knew exactly what was going on and that he would have call him out on it, if it wasn’t too much of a drag to do.  
  
‘You knowing, it’s not going to change anything, it’s not going to help or bring him back,’ Naruto said instead, and he knew that if he told Shikamaru, he needed to live with the fact that he might tell Ino, or his dad or someone else and then people would know.  
But he was leaving soon, and—  
  
‘Whatever you want to tell me right know, I’ll keep it to myself,’ Shikamaru told him, and Naruto watched him as he did so.  
  
‘Why?’  
  
‘Because I want you to know that I am still your friend. It feels important.’ Shikamaru had a way of saying the exact right thing and Naruto knew that he’d have to tell someone and it would probably be better to tell Shikamaru than the perverted hermit he was about to travel with.  
  
‘We were more than friends,’ is what he settled on saying and there was something satisfying about the way Shikamaru’s eyes widened, he blushed, and stared at the wall instead.  
  
Naruto could see his brain working, and then Shikamaru stopped to watch him again. ‘This has been going on for a year, right? If not longer.’  
  
‘What part of it?’ Naruto asked as he watched his friend look around his apartment.  
  
‘Everything.’  
  
Naruto shook his head. ‘We started hanging out more after our mission to wave, in that first year. He would have died for me then, and that changed a lot. Thinking about it, him knowing that I had understood what he was ready to do for me, was the basis of this entire thing. It took us a year to start anything else and then when Kakashi announced the Chunin exams, things changed.’ Now that he thought of it, that had been a bit over a year ago. Had they really been doing this for more than a year?  
  
Shikamaru nodded to himself. ‘Well at least we know he won’t use you as a bargaining chip with Orochimaru.’  
  
Naruto snorted and Shikamaru groaned. ‘Of course, you didn’t talk about it.’  
  
‘Shut up. You can talk to me about this, when you’ve been all upfront and open with what’s-her-face from Suna.’  
  
Shikamaru watched him again, curiously. ‘You noticed that?’  
  
Naruto saw the insecurity and felt bad for it. ‘I don’t think a lot of people have picked up on it yet.’  
  
The silence between them settled comfortably, and they ended up spending the rest of the day together, caught somewhere between not talking at all and talking too much. At the end, Shikamaru left telling him he’d bring his Shogi board the next time and Naruto realized that he didn’t feel as lonely anymore.


End file.
